


Slipping in a Winter Wonderland

by romanitas



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanitas/pseuds/romanitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The holidays are a great time for tradition, like festive lights or slipping on ice. Running outside barefoot in the dead of winter is just stupid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slipping in a Winter Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> from the prompt/au on tumblr: “i slipped on ice outside your house and you ran out barefoot to help me quick let’s get inside under a blanket”

Clarke enjoys walking around at night, generally. She loves the holiday decorations, the lights run up trees and streetlights. She even loves the snow, mostly because living in a city means she doesn’t have to shovel the sidewalk in front of her apartment building. She isn’t too concerned about muggings in her nightly strolls, but mostly because Wells has told her countless times she doesn’t walk down the street with Bitchy Resting Face – it’s more like “I’m Going to Murder You” face, which she chooses to take as a compliment, and Wells agrees. Plus, Octavia has taught her a few self defense moves, and she knows which areas are more notorious for theft and crime.

The problem with walking during the winter, not just at night, is that snow often comes with ice. It isn’t like Clarke forgets about this, but she wears sturdy boots with tough grips on the soles for a reason. She likes to think of herself as an ice pro.

She does forget though, that the Blakes’ apartment doesn’t have the same attention to sidewalk cleanup that her complex does, probably because theirs is smaller and an actual house in a less –  _proper_  end of town, her mother would say. They live on the bottom floor, and she can see their tiny tree lit up in the window by the time she gets there; it always makes her smile. It’s not as fancy as her mother’s tree back home, but it’s much more personalized, and ninety percent of the ornaments are homemade over the years. Clarke’s even made a few.

She’s so focused on the tree that the ground beneath her feet becomes inconsequential. Heel meets a patch of ice just as she catches Bellamy’s eye through the window, but then Bellamy’s face is gone along with the tree, and for two seconds, Clarke genuinely feels airborn as her foot slips on the ice and her body loses the fight with gravity. She lands hard on the ground, ankle twisted, and swears loud enough that her voice echoes down the street.

It isn’t enough hurt to see stars, but it enough that she curses some more as the pain vibrates up her leg through her hip, and she gently moves herself into a seated position.

The door flies open and Bellamy storms out. “Shit, Clarke, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says automatically, because she knows at the very least that nothing is broken. She did pre-med for a semester, which makes her more qualified than all her friends.

Bellamy looks like he’s hopping over, and it takes Clarke only a few seconds to realize why he’s walking funny – he’s run out barefoot. He squats down next to her and  _frets_ , but she just gestures at his feet. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you didn’t crack your damn head open!”

“You’re gonna split your toes open!” she snaps, and she blames the soreness from her fall, because it’s supposed to be out of care not aggression.

He grabs her under the arm and makes to stand them both up, his posture still a little off from his goddamn feet being bare. “Let me know if you can stand. You need to get inside.”

“I should be asking you the same question,” she grumbles, but again: she was once pre-med, so she knows he’s got the right idea. Clarke grips his arms as they both climb up to their feet and winces; her ankle is a little sore, but it’s nothing a pack of ice wouldn’t fix. She steps down and puts a little pressure on it, wincing again, and two seconds later, Bellamy has an arm scooped around her waist before she even asks.

They’re like that, though, weaving in and out of each other, stepping in to lend a hand before the other even mentions it. It’s companionable, which is hilarious when she thinks about the first time they met and how much she despised him. But it was Bellamy who came over with a tub of ice cream when she broke up with her girlfriend a few months ago, and he didn’t say anything. They just sat on her couch and watched old episodes of Ghost Adventures; Bellamy likes to yell at Zak Bagans for being a tool, and Clarke has long been Team Aaron, unable to believe how often they send him into the depths alone.

Next to Raven and Wells, he’s probably her best friend. Drift Compatible, Wells likes to tease her, because he’s obsessed with Pacific Rim.

At the way she easily attaches on to him, and the way he sturdies her without direction to take her inside the house, how easily they move together, at least in this moment she might agree. He’d probably give their jaeger a nerdy name.

He’s still barefoot though, and she frowns as he walks across the ice towards the door he left wide open. He nudges it shut with his hip and helps her to the couch, tossing a pillow at her face before she acknowledges how nice he’s being. “I don’t think we have ice packs, but I might have some frozen peas?”

“That’s fine, for now.” He nods at her then disappears into the kitchen as Clarke slowly takes off her boots. Tentatively, she rolls her ankle. It stings, but it moves, reassuring her it isn’t broken. Bellamy comes back with the peas wrapped in a dish towel, and she throws the pillow back at _his_  face once he gives it to her.

He sits down next to her and shivers. She frowns at him. “You’re an idiot,” she scolds.

Bellamy just rolls his eyes, tossing the blanket at her next and ignoring the insult. “You need to change your clothes? You know O won’t mind if you steal a pair of sweatpants.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t get wet, nothing ripped,” she replies, wrapping the blanket around her like a cocoon. She doesn’t need to change, but she _is_  kind of cold. The chill from the ice did seep in through her leggings, and she does have peas on her foot, all of which comes after the walk over here in the first place, of course she’s cold. Bellamy shivers again, pointedly ignoring it. “I can’t believe you didn’t put shoes on. What if you sliced your foot open? Do you know how much Octavia would laugh at us with matching foot injuries if she came home to it?”

“It wouldn’t be matching if mine was bleeding,” he says dryly.

“Why aren’t you even wearing socks? I know you have practically an endless supply of holiday ones.”

“They’re in the wash. O keeps stealing them.”

“Excuses,” she says primly. He tucks his legs under him pointedly, and Clarke sighs dramatically, tossing open one side of the blanket and getting a raised, judging eyebrow in response. “I can’t believe I’m the one who fell on the ice, and I’m the one making sure your feet don’t fall off from the cold. You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“My feet aren’t going to fall off from walking across a patch of ice, Clarke,” he says with the kind of condescending she’s come to think of as affectionate. It’s definitely not actually condescending, especially because he shifts over and tucks his feet under the blanket – and naturally, presses his cold toes up against her leg.

She shrieks and hits him, the movement causing the peas to fall on the floor. “Bellamy! I’m using vegetables, not your feet!”

“I’m just using the blanket like you told me to,” he says, too airily to be anything but purposely obnoxious and she throws another pillow at him.

“You’re being an ass,” she huffs, and he just grins at her without any denial. He stops though, shifting closer towards her instead and rearranging the blanket. He makes sure she stays covered more, shoulder brushing against hers as he adjusts himself under the blanket to keep his feet warm.

“There. Better?”

She grins in spite of herself. “Much. Except you forgot to get the peas.”

He rolls his eyes. “Your ankle’s sore, you’re not bedridden, Jesus,” he complains, but he leans over the side of the couch anyway, even rewraps up the veggies nice and neat in the towel, returning it back to her ankle, just about the only part of her uncovered.

Clarke beams at him, unexpectedly, feeling a rush of affection for him. He ran out  _barefoot_  when she fell, which is admittedly a very Bellamy thing to do when she thinks about it, stupid as it is caring, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling so mushy. She was ready to tear her hair out when they first met, and now they’re on the couch sharing a blanket. She’s overcome with the urge to curl up against him, which the most ridiculous urge in the world. Maybe she fell and hit her head and forgot she hit her head.

Like he’s reading her mind, his arm slips around behind her, and even though technically it’s up on the back of the couch, it’s close enough that she can feel how warm he is. He goes back to scrolling through Netflix on the holiday category, like her arrival was nothing more than a brief interlude in his evening plans. He hadn’t even asked why she was coming over but – he doesn’t anymore, does he? Clarke shows up without a reason more often than not lately, and she’s beginning to realize maybe she knows why.

“When Krampus gets on Netflix, we’re watching it,” is all he says.

“I told you we could just go see it,” she says, rolling her eyes as she quietly shifts into him a little bit. He doesn’t react, so she doesn’t move away. “Just pick something. I’m giving you a lousy review for hospital entertainment.”

“Accept the free option or pay for your upgrade,” he replies without missing a beat.

“Minus ten for a rude staff.”

“Shut up, Clarke.”

She laughs, because that means she wins, and then she wriggles in even closer against him without realizing. But he’s warm, and the blanket is warm, and the pain in her ankle has gone mostly dull – and it’s almost _Christmas._  The holidays are supposed to be some kind of magical.

When he drops his arm around her shoulders legitimately, she idly wonders if she should be grateful for the existence of ice. Bellamy makes an excellent pillow.


End file.
